As The Telegraph reported, in March the Met Office “slightly favoured drier than average conditions for April-May-June”. Yet we’ve had more rain than since records began. How could clever people be so wrong? Famously, the climate is a complex system. The usual example of how small changes in initial conditions can lead […]
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Will the Chancellor back a Competition Commission inquiry into LIBOR setting?
Before I left Westminster on Thursday, I submitted this written question to the Chancellor for answer on 2 July: Steve Baker (Wycombe): To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the need for a Competition Commission inquiry into the routine procedures for setting LIBOR. […]
Read MoreTwo videos celebrating 15 years of the Monetary Policy Committee
SaveOurSavers are celebrating 15 years of the Monetary Policy Committee with the following video. It’s rather too harsh on the Governor: effective central planning of the price of money is just as impossible as the planning of other prices and surely more counterproductive. That is, the Monetary Policy Committee are […]
Read MoreExpect the Bank of England to be surprised by inflation in the next couple of months
The Bank of England’s latest Inflation Report forecasts falling inflation: However, my preferred measure of the money supply, MA from Kaleidic Economics, is now rising at 6% year on year, in contrast to the Bank’s measures of broad money: There are other factors at work too but there’s a certain […]
Read MoreBank of England’s Haldane endorses concerns on bogus bank accounting
The Bank of England’s Executive Director Financial Stability, Andy Haldane, has set out the case for banks to be held to different accounting standards because the existing rules have may allowed banks to overstate their profits and exacerbate their losses. This is something I covered in a private members’ bill […]
Read MoreIf this is capitalism, I am not a capitalist
I spoke last night in the general debate on the economy, saying*: As I rise to speak I am reminded of a quotation from an economist who was a fierce critic of Keynes, a chap called Henry Hazlitt, who said: “Today is already the tomorrow which the bad economist yesterday urged […]
Read MoreMore QE? Hold tight for a worse crisis later
From Mises’ Human Action: The wavelike movement affecting the economic system, the recurrence of periods of boom which are followed by periods of depression, is the unavoidable outcome of the attempts, repeated again and again, to lower the gross market rate of interest by means of credit expansion. There is no […]
Read MoreBank warns lenders over bad loans – FT.com
As I have been saying about IFRS: The FPC said it was most concerned that banks had not set aside adequate provisions for this potential new crop of troubled loans. “If provisioning is inadequate, banks’ reported profits and levels of capital may provide a misleading picture of their financial health,” […]
Read MoreThe Cobden Centre: What is money?
Writing for The Cobden Centre, I ask “What is money?“: In their working paper “Assessing UK money supply measures in the light of the credit crunch”, Toby Baxendale and Anthony J. Evans provide a better measure of the money supply. In this article, Steven Baker explores the background to the […]
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